42.4% of Americans Would Give Up Alcohol for Cybersecurity

With the recent, massive Equifax data breach in which 143 million people’s personal data is believed to have been compromised, we’re once again reminded how exposed we all are. Everything a criminal would need to steal our identities — most significantly our financial credit — is apparently out there for the taking. Even companies, like Equifax, who are entrusted with comprehensive digital knowledge of us all, are insufficiently secure when it comes to hackers up to no good.

And it’s real. Many of us have personal experience with charges other than our own appearing on credit cards — “Who booked these airline flights to Nairobi?” — with little you can do other than request the credit-card company remove the charges, if they happen to be good about these things. Many have suffered far more catastrophic identify thefts.

We’re rightfully terrified. New infographics from Modis, using data pulled together data from a range of reputable sources, makes it clear how important privacy has become to us, at least as far as potentially damaging information goes:

Bye-bye chocolate? Too bad, significant other. (MODIS)

Looking at the data we consider most important to keep private, it becomes clear that identity theft is a priority.

Potentially money-related information tops the list. (MODIS)

People have a variety of reasons to keep things on the down-low, and they vary by age. Clearly, teenagers who’ve grown up connected consider privacy mostly an issue of avoiding embarrassment. 

(MODIS)

And yet, even though we’re generally aware that we’re hopelessly unprepared to keep our information secure, how much do you think people would be willing to pay for cybersecurity?

We may have the reason online security hasn’t been addressed more seriously right here. (MODIS)

Concerns about privacy don’t end at the screen, either. Even IRL, we like to keep some information to ourselves.

(MODIS)

Not that we’re always successful. 

(MODIS)